


thus do we refute entropy

by minarchy



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: A Bear Named Winnie - Freeform, Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minarchy/pseuds/minarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where michael was a bear, once upon a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thus do we refute entropy

**Author's Note:**

> Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy
> 
> Spider Robinson, _Callahan's Law_

James never thought that there was anything particularly ursine about Michael.

Lupine – lupine over canine, because there was a very distinct difference between 'dogs' and 'wolves'; lupine, in the way that Michael is tall but wiry and fucking _fast_ , and the tenacity in which he follows through with whatever he has decided will happen, and the decidedly predatory grin that he flashes at James at the most inopportune moments.

That fucking smile, with too much teeth and the glint it puts in Michael's eyes, traces cold fingers down James' spine and normally has him fumble his line or forget the question or, on several memorable occasions, drop whatever it was that he was holding.

But then, he can move like a damned cat when he wants to; so maybe a hyena. They have canid and feline characteristics;

and he was fairly certain that he had just said all of that aloud, because Michael is laughing semi-hysterically into his shoulder and he's only just remembering why he is a lightweight.

"You're still talking," Michael says, and James swears internally.

Wait.

"Still talking," Michael says again, wrapping one arm around James' waist and tugging him upright, although the action was more down to momentum and gravity than any physical prowess.

"Fuck off," James says, as Michael dumps him unceremoniously on his bed.

"No more NatGeo for you," Michael says, grinning as he tugs of James' shoes, narrowly avoiding being kicked in the head as James struggles.

"No!" He pushes himself up on his elbows and tries valiantly to focus of Michael's face. "Big Cat Diary starts tomorrow!"

"Your love for Simon King will just have to find another outlet."

"No, no," James corrects, with a lazy swat of his hand and an earnest look at Michael. "Jonathan Scott is where it's at."

Michael snorts. "Goodnight, James."

"Don't take Jonathan away from me!" James calls after him.

 

Michael tells him the story one night a few months ago, as they sit and smoke on the roof of Michael's apartment. Michael is rolling the neck of his beer bottle through his fingers, whilst James has left his standing within reach. They have been nursing the same drink for the past hour, and James welcomes the chance to rechill it in the cool night air, even if he cannot recarbonate it.

"Old family legend," Michael says, his mouth falling into a lopsided smile.

"From the German side," James guesses. "Because, you know." He waves a hand, vaguely. "No bears in Ireland for a long time."

Michael gives him a long look that James cannot read.

"Yeah," he says, taking a long pull of his beer. The air cracks between them with some tension that James can feel pulling at his skin but has no idea where it came from. He follows suit and tugs on his beer, washing the luke-warm, flattening liquid over his tongue. "Well," Michael says, and the tension evaporates as if it was never there, "this old family legend –"

 

When they were in Manitoba, Michael took him to see Charlie and Chester.

 

James hadn't entirely known what to expect; he'd seen the film, watched the video of Michael and the cubs and Bonkers, and he had _seen_ how Michael was with them. But he realised that he hadn't fully understood, because the Michael he knew was not the sort of man to play-wrestle with adolescent bears that were almost the same height as him and easily half his weight again. The Michael he knew got angry at the television and whistled to himself in the morning and made ludicrously obscene jokes about perfect strangers.

He lost the thread of the conversation, glancing over when he realises that no one was talking to catch Dan looking at him with a surprisingly knowing eye.

"I –" he says, and had no idea what to continue with. Dan claps a hand to his shoulder.

"He never wants to leave," he says. "We'd just better hope that you're enough to lure him away."

 

There's an uncomfortable throb at the back of James' head, and it feels like there are iced needles playing along his spine. He is standing in the pint-sized box of a kitchen, staring out of the window at the grey horizon.

Michael ambles in behind him; James watches with a kind of detached distress as he flicks the kettle onto boil and lights his cigarette from the stove.

"It's not a legend, is it," he says, and Michael pauses with his cigarette half-way to his mouth.

 

Now that James knows, it changes everything and nothing at all.

Michael is still Michael; he still smokes too much and swears too loudly and takes up the entire sofa with his stupidly-long legs when watching television and complains when James puts too much chilli in a curry. Everything is exactly the same, except for the fact that James _knows_.

One thing that changes is the sex. Now, Michael snarls and rumbles deep in his chest when he pushes James against the wall to thrust his hand down his trousers; he bites, latching his teeth onto James' shoulder; he pushes his thumb into James' pulsepoint and inhales, as if he can smell James' blood beneath his skin.

James can't say that he's complaining.

And at night, when Michael twitches in his sleep and growls in his throat, James rolls over and wraps his arm over Michael's shoulder; he presses his head between Michael's shoulderblades and says,

"I'm so sorry."

If Michael ever hears, he never mentions it.

 

Once, there were bears that lived in the forest who could take off their skin. They would walk naked as humans beneath the stars, laughing and shivering in soft, pink flesh. Their bear skins they would hide, safe and secure, to return to in the morning.

One day, the boy cub took off his skin and left it on the ground, ignoring his mother's warnings to hide it away. He went wandering through the woods, and strayed further than he had ever gone before; until he came across a stone road, and became entirely lost. Humans found him, and wouldn't let him leave – because he was wearing his pink skin, and they wouldn't believe that he did not belong. He escaped, eventually, and went looking for his family.

When he found his skin, it was shredded. Dogs had beaten him to it.

When he found his mother, she smelt only a human boy, and chased him away.

When he found his sister, she snarled and growled and hid up their favourite tree, and he could not follow.

He went back to the humans, because he was utterly alone.


End file.
